


Summer Lovin'

by GhostFox



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (i should chill with the drowning stuff lmao), Beach Volleyball, M/M, some gay shit, someone almost DROWNS, the group goes to the beach, the kraken is there, they get into some shenanagins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:36:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostFox/pseuds/GhostFox
Summary: Hinata plans a beach trip, Suga is the world's worst driver, and Kageyama has a particular sensitivity to sunshine. What could possibly go wrong?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sweetferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetferret/gifts).



> This is a (late) birthday present for the amazingly wonderful and 320% cool, [sweetferret!](http://sweetferretxd.tumblr.com/)  
> You're one of my absolute favorite people in the world and you deserve so much happiness. I hope you enjoy your gift ^-^
> 
>  
> 
> I want to turn the whole thing upside down  
> I'll find the things they say just can't be found  
> I'll share this love I find with everyone  
> We'll sing and dance to Mother Nature's songs  
> This world keeps spinning and there's no time to waste  
> Well it all keeps spinning spinning round and round and
> 
> Upside down  
> Who's to say what's impossible and can't be found  
> I don't want this feeling to go away
> 
> \- Jack Johnson

There are very few reasons to wake before noon. One, the main one of course, is school, but seeing as he’s on summer vacation Hinata finds the early birdsong outside his window and the smell of fried eggs filling his room particularly upsetting. All of that would have been fine, though, had it not been for the warm wetness below his head, making the pillowcase fuse itself to his sticky skin. 

That must be what woke him up, dropping him unapologetically into this hell made of sweat and sunlight several degrees too hot for...8AM?

Hinata let’s out a loud groan after checking the time, throwing an arm over his forehead and grimacing at the way it slips on his clammy skin. He grabs for his phone beneath his pillow, quickly clicking on his recent call list and touching the first name. The voicemail picks up the first time, so he tries again, and again, finally getting an answer towards the end of the third call. 

“You’d better be dead or almost there or I swear to-,”

“Kageyamaaaaaaa,” Hinata interrupts, unfazed by the threats he’s heard so many times out of his friend’s mouth. “I’m  _ melting _ .”

“That’s not my problem,” Kageyama replies through a yawn, and Hinata feels a small bit of satisfaction knowing he woke Kageyama up and dragged him into his suffering. Misery really does love company. 

“But it should be,” he presses on, peeking behind his arm at the light hitting the ceiling and squinting. “If I don’t cool off soon I really  _ am _ going to die, and then what will you do?”

“Plan a party and then go back to sleep.”

“That’s it!” He yells, sitting up suddenly, air hitting the wet patches on the back of his shirt. “A party!”

“What’re you-,”

“A pool party! It’s perfect! Let’s have a pool party,” Hinata says, suddenly fully awake as he hops out of bed, pulling his sweat soaked shirt over his head and throwing it in a heap in the corner.

“Do you know how crowded the pools are going to be today?” Hinata can hear the concession in Kageyama’s voice as he realizes he won’t be able to change his mind. Why he even tries anymore Hinata will never know. 

“Fine, we’ll go to the beach! Then we won’t have to worry about little kids peeing in the water.”

“Fish pee in the ocean water, you dumbass,” Kageyama sighs, the sound of him rifling through a drawer coming from the speakers.

“That doesn’t count. Fish just pee out more ocean water, it’s fine,” he says, shaking his head and pushing the window open in his bedroom, hoping for a breeze but being met instead with a wall of stagnant heat. 

“That doesn’t make any s-,”

“Kageyama pleeeeeease,” he begs, slamming the window back shut and drawing the curtain, trying his best to block out the aggressive sunlight but achieving next to nothing. “If I don’t go swimming today I’m going to melt and then I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you forever.”

“You can’t haunt someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

Hinata frowns, not knowing enough about the laws of ghosts to be able to argue back. He racks his brain for anything that can convince Kageyama, beaming when it finally comes to him. 

“There are usually nets set up at the beach. We can play volleyball.”

“Really?”

Hinata snickers behind his hand, picturing Kageyama’s head whipping up at the mention of the sport like a dog seeing a squirrel. “Yeah, really. So are you in?”

“....fine. You win, I’ll go,” he mumbles, and Hinata can hear the sound of water spraying on the other end. “But first I’m gonna shower because I feel like I slept in soup.”

“Great! I’ll call everyone else and we’ll all meet at your house in an hour!”

“What? Why my house?”

Hinata ignores the question and hangs up, curling his fist around the phone and punching it triumphantly into the air. This is going to be the best beach trip anyone could ever dream of having, he tells himself, practically buzzing with excitement. But first, he also definitely needs a shower. 

He showers as quickly as he can, having to practically drag himself away from the stream of cold water that feels like heaven on his back, and bounds back to his room to gather his things. After throwing on the first pair of swim trunks he finds, a pink pair with embroidered blue starfish that his mom picked out, and a striped blue tank top, Hinata tosses anything that seems vaguely beach worthy into a backpack. Sunscreen, a towel, sunglasses, a tiger print visor he finds in Natsu’s room, any snacks he can get his hands on, and, of course, a volleyball. With a quick explanation to his parent’s he’s out the door, jumping on his bike and pedaling down the familiar path to Kageyama’s house. 

By the time he makes it half the team is already waiting on the baking hot curb, including Kageyama himself in a ridiculously neon yellow tank top, and every single one of them has a volleyball tucked under their arm. 

“I guess we’ll have plenty of extras,” he shrugs, taking a seat on the curb between Noya and Yamaguchi. 

“In case one falls in the ocean,” Noya nods, bumping Hinata’s shoulder with his own.

“It’s not like they melt if they touch water,” Tsukishima says, looking at them with a mixture of disbelief and pity. 

“I don’t know, I’ve never gotten a volleyball wet before,” Tanaka shrugs, spinning his volleyball in his hand. “Not in ocean water, at least.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s bad for the paint or something,” Kageyama says, inspecting his own ball with wide eyes. 

Yamaguchi opens his mouth but shuts it back silently, unsure of how to respond to the conversation and patting Tsukishima’s shoulder as he mumbles something about ‘ _ fucking idiots _ ’ under his breath. 

Before another topic can start a red minivan, that had definitely seen better days judging from it’s various dents and scratches, stops on the street in front of the waiting boys. The driver’s window rolls down and a familiar shock of silver hair leans out, accompanied by a wide grin they all know and love. 

“Get in, losers, we’re going shopping.”

Kageyama wrinkles his nose, looking up at Suga with confusion painted all over his face. “No, we’re going to the beach.”

“I told you they wouldn’t get it,” Daichi chimes in from the passenger seat, his and Kiyoko’s head appearing behind Suga’s. “Just get in, guys, before all the cold air escapes.”

The side door slides open and the group files in, finding Asahi, Kiyoko, and Yachi already strapped into their seats with bags that seem to contain  much more food and supplies and less volleyballs than theirs. The group, excluding Noya who takes the empty seat in the middle row next to Asahi and Yachi, heads for the back row.

“Since when do you have a car, Suga?” Tsukishima asks, waiting for Yamaguchi to click his seatbelt in place so he can do the same. 

“I don’t. My mom let me borrow hers,” he answers, adjusting the rearview mirror so he can see everyone fidgeting and trying to fit themselves on the long bench seat. 

“Suga turned eighteen a week ago, got his license two days ago, and now he thinks he’s a pro,” Daichi tells them, turning around in his seat and hiding his mouth with the side of his hand before whispering theatrically behind Suga. “He’s only hit two trashcans and a bird so far so we should be fine.”

“That bird hit  _ me _ !” Suga yells indignantly, one hand pressed to his chest in offense. “It flew right into the windshield on it’s own.”

“You’re going to drive us all the way to the beach, Suga?” Hinata asks, wide eyed. It’s then that he realizes he hadn’t actually planned out how they would all get to the beach, but that’s what senpais are for, right?

“Yup! Everyone strapped in?”

After a chorus of ‘yeah’s with varying degrees of enthusiasm and terror Suga shifts the van into drive and the team is on their way, the houses and heat lined streets passing the windows like smears of blending paint. 

It doesn’t take long for the arguing to start, most of it coming from the group in the back. 

“Kageyama stop squishing me with your giant butt!” Hinata yells, trying to free his arm from where its imprisoned next to Kageyama. 

“Stop moving around so much, dumbass! And my butt isn’t giant!” He retorts, tearing his arm away from Hinata and accidentally smacking Tsukishima’s glasses to the floorboard. 

“Oh my god I can’t sit with them,” Tsukishima growls, frowning when Yamaguchi hands him his glasses that are  now covered in lint and what looks to be a half eaten piece of candy. “Daichi please, I don’t deserve this.”

“Hush up back there or I’ll turn this van around,” Suga calls, smirking at them through the mirror. 

There’s a chorus of scandalized “No, please!’s and one ‘please do’ from the rest of the passengers, and the group quiets down. Which only lasts about five minutes before another argument starts up and Suga really does pull over. It’s decided that the arrangement in the back seat absolutely will not work, so after several minutes of maneuvering the smallest members are sent to the back row, leaving Hinata, Noya, and Tanaka (who insisted on ‘taking one for the team’), with an unimpressed Kiyoko and Yachi. Asahi takes Kiyoko’s spot between Suga and Daichi in the front, and Kageyama, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi spread out comfortably in the middle. 

The rest of the trip passes rather smoothly with the seating arrangement working flawlessly. The group is restless by the time the beach comes into view, Hinata pressing his face against the glass and staring in awe at the turquoise water that will save him from an untimely summer death. 

“There! There it is!” He yells, his breath fogging the glass.

“It looks so pretty,” Yachi smiles beside him, leaning over his lap to get a better view. 

“Until the sea monsters come,” Hinata says, earning a glare from Kiyoko on Yachi’s other side.

“Sea monsters?” The girl’s eyes are wide as dinner plates, terror masked in chocolate brown. “Th-those aren’t real.”

“Sure they are!” 

As if to prove his theory Hinata moves his finger through the condensation on the window, drawing one long wavy line for the surface of the water and several jagged ones complete with a tail and teeth much too big for its mouth to form the monster itself.

“That’s disgusting,” Tsukishima grimaces, turning nonchalantly in his seat to join the conversation behind him. “You’re just spreading your spit all over the glass.”

“I’m just showing Yachi what sea monsters look like,” Hinata shrugs, watching the fog fade from around the edges of his little doodle. 

“That’s not even what they look like,” Kageyama scoffs, leaning over Tsukishima’s lap and breathing heavily to make a much larger drawing surface than the window beside him. “They look like this, dumbass.”

He carefully carves a wet path through the fog to make a large lump with several long tentacles, nodding triumphantly when he deems it finished.

“That’s not a sea monster, that’s the Kraken,” Yamaguchi tells him, stretching over both of them to draw two circular eyes on it’s middle. 

“It’s just a squid,” Tsukishima sighs, looking at Yamaguchi with a mixture of disappointment and disgust. “Don’t tell me you believe them.”

“Well, squids  _ are _ real, Tsukki. And they get really big.”

“Ha! See? Sea monsters are real,” Hinata yells, shooting his fist in the air and frowning as it makes contact with the roof of the van. “Ouch!”

“I hope a squid drowns you both,” Tsukishima mumbles, sinking back in his seat until only the very top of his blond head is visible over the back of the seat. 

Hinata elbows Yachi, leaning down to whisper ‘see? I told you’ as the van quiets back down. Yachi looks like she might faint. 

“Hey, isn’t that the exit to the beach?” Daichi asks, voice traveling easily through the van. 

“Which one?” Suga asks, craning his neck to see over the cars in front him. 

“The one we’re about to pass.”

“Yup!” 

Suga flips on his blinker and turns the steering wheel hard to the left, everyone sliding in their seats and pressing into the opposite wall in a flurry of screams and protests, all sure that the van is mere seconds away from tipping over.

“SUGA WE’RE ACROSS FOUR LANES OF TRAFFIC!” Daichi yells, voice barely audible above Suga’s laughter as he tries to make a grab for the steering wheel and Asahi clings to him for dear life. 

“Not anymore!” Suga sings, the side tires of the van touching back onto pavement as he drives them easily onto the exit ramp and off of the highway. “See? I know what I’m doing.”

“None of that is anything you can or should be doing!”

“Hey,” he pouts, turning to look at Daichi who yells to keep his eyes on the road. “I got us on the exit, right?”

The entire group erupts into a chorus of ‘WE COULD HAVE DIED!’, Hinata’s heart beating so hard in his chest he thinks it might actually stop. 

“But you didn’t!”

No one has any energy left to argue, all silently sending prayers as thanks for their lives and slowly untangling themselves from the heaps they were thrown into. Yachi doesn’t take her face out of Hinata’s chest until the van comes to a full halt, the engine cutting off completely.

The group stumbles out of the van, falling over each other and into the sand, running their hands through it to make sure that, yes, this is solid and safe ground beneath them. As Daichi pulls the bags out of the floorboard and hands them out Hinata hears Asahi whispering to him and looking even more distraught than usual. 

“I swear I saw my entire life flash before my eyes, Daichi,” he says. “I was old and had a wife and a baby. I don’t want a wife  _ or _ a baby!”

“If it comes to it I’ll drive us home,” Daichi replies, nodding along. “I might go to jail but at least I’ll be in a cell not a coffin. That is if they’d even be able to piece us back together after the accident he’d get us into.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Suga says, coming around the side of the van with the ice chest of food from the trunk. “I honestly don’t get what the big complaint is. I totally had enough room for that lane change.”

“There is just no arguing with him…” Daichi sighs, speaking to himself but loud enough for Suga to hear. “Anyway, here you go, guys.”

Daichi starts grabbing the pile of volleyballs from the back seats, tossing them out one by one and letting them land softly in the warm sand. 

The sound sends a jolt of electricity through Hinata, reviving him immediately with the prospect of volleyball. His head whips up, the sight of regulation blue and yellow leather glinting in the sun like a work of art before his eyes. 

He’s practically salivating as he reaches for the closest ball, but a hand grabs it right out from under his nose before he can.

“Hey! What’s the big idea?” He asks, looking up and meeting Kageyama’s eyes that spark like blue fire, the look he gets only when he has volleyball on the mind. Hinata knows it well. 

“3 v 3?” He asks, turning to see Noya, Tanaka, and Yamaguchi perk up. Tsukishima keeps his head buried in the sand until Yamaguchi shakes him awake.

“Hell yeah,” Hinata answers, hopping up and trying to swipe the ball from Kageyama’s grip but missing as he turns and sprints down the beach towards the nets, his pace slowed by the heavy sand. 

“Language!” Suga scolds him as he fishes in a tote bag hanging off his shoulder. He hands Hinata a pink bottle with a stern look. “Make sure everyone puts on their sunscreen or no volleyball.”

“Yes, Suga,” they all mumble, knowing his threats are never empty.

By the time they all make it to the nets Kageyama is already practicing, attempting to toss, receive, and spike all by himself.

Noya swipes the ball and declares himself a team captain, appointing Tanaka as the other. Kageyama and Tsukishima are sent to Noya’s team, leaving Hinata and Yamaguchi on Tanaka’s, and the game begins. 

The boys spare no ounce of energy, diving into sand dunes and darting across the makeshift court at top speed barely realizing how much time passes. Kageyama sheds his terrible yellow shirt halfway through the game, and Hinata tries his best to focus all of his thoughts on the ball, making the others raise their intensity to match. 

At some point the third years and Yachi drift over, laying out towels and umbrellas beside the court and looking like the cover of a vacation relaxation magazine. Yachi calls out the score as the game goes on, adding in words of encouragement for both sides until finally they all collapse exhausted on the sand and she hovers nervously over them with water bottles and even more sunscreen. 

Hinata practically drags himself over to his bag, laying out his towel and collapsing again, the sun suddenly not his friend and more like an omnipresent overlord of heat and discomfort. 

“Kageyamaaaa,” he whines, shading his eyes and peering over to where his friend spreads his own towel beside him. “Turn the sun off.”

“You can’t turn the sun off, dumbass, it’s a moon so it stays there,” he answers matter of factly, dropping onto the ground with a tired huff. 

“It’s not a moon,” Hinata argues back, squinting his eyes and giving Kageyama his best ‘are you actually an idiot?’ face. “It’s a planet that’s always on fire, like how Pluto is always frozen.”

“That’s ridiculous. And Pluto isn’t a planet either.”

“It is  _ so _ ,” he yells, sitting up despite the protests of his tired limbs. 

“Stop yelling!” Kageyama yells back, rolling his eyes. “Just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean you have to be loud about it.” 

Hinata’s mouth falls open in offense but he has nothing better to offer up as an argument than to cross his arms with an indignant ‘hmph’ and lay back on his towel. 

Noya calls for a rematch and Daichi and Asahi excitedly take Hinata and Kageyama’s places on the court, a look in their eyes as if they'd been itching to touch a volleyball for hours. Hinata lays an arm over his face, trying his best to block out the sun, and listening to the sounds of the match mixing with the water lapping over the sand and voices from the other visitors along the shore. The yells and thumps as the ball hits sand pushes and pulls in his mind like the waves crashing and receding, forming some sort of makeshift lullaby and before he knows it he’s drifting off to sleep. 

An endeavor which, in his mind, only last seconds before the shouting turns into something more direct instead of just background noise, his own name carrying over everything else and assaulting his ears. 

“Hinata! Kageyama! Are you two gonna sleep all day or are you gonna come swim!?”

Hinata lifts his head, the skin of his face feeling tight and uncomfortably hot, his cheek sticking to whatever is beneath it. At first he thinks he must have drooled on his towel and it stuck to him, but his eyes fly open when whatever is beneath him moves too.

“What the-,” he starts, but his jaw snaps shut when he looks down and finds Kageyama rolling over onto his back and sitting up, rubbing his tired eyes with one hand. He frowns when he looks over at Hinata who does his best to wipe off the surprised expression and replace it with a casual one. The last thing he needs is for Kageyama, or anyone else, to realize he had used him as a pillow. 

“Your face looks like a tomato, dumbass,” he mumbles groggily. 

Hinata lifts a hand up to his cheek and feels heat beneath his fingertips, wincing at the pain. “Ah man, Suga is gonna be so mad!”

“Am I burned too?” Kageyama asks.

“No, your face looks fine. Still as ugly as usual.”

“I slept on my stomach, stupid,” he barks, turning around. “Check my back.”

Hinata lets out a squeak but slaps his palm over his mouth to stifle the sound. Outlined on Kageyama’s back in stark white and red is the shape of Hinata’s head, hair spikes and everything, as if someone sat and drew it out in excruciating detail. Kageyama would murder him for this. 

“You, uh, you’re fine,” Hinata says, trying to keep his voice at an even and not terrified pitch.

“Are you sure? It feels burned,” Kageyama replies, reaching back to touch his skin and hissing.

“Well, yeah, it's burned, it’s just…,”

“Just what?”

Hinata fists a hand in his swim trunks and bites his bottom lip, avoiding Kageyama’s eyes that he can feel boring into his skin. “It’s all over your whole back, in a uniform shape, full coverage.”

“You said I was fine!”

“I changed my mind!”

Kageyama grabs the front of his shirt, pulling him forward until their foreheads bump together and Hinata can see his jaw clenching from gritting his teeth and feel the heat of his anger which makes the sun feel like a lightbulb in comparison. Hinata gulps, trying to focus on being terrified instead of the fact that Kageyama has flecks of black in his blue eyes that he’s never been close enough to see before. 

“Hey! Stop making out and get over here already!” Someone calls from the water, shattering whatever bubble they had been in. They spring apart, landing several feet away from each other and faces a brighter red than their sunburns.

“We weren’t-”

“I wasn’t-”

They stop, realizing none of the group can hear them and they’re just denying things to themselves. They sit like that for a few seconds, refusing to look at each other, until Hinata breaks the awkward silence. 

“Do you wanna,” he pauses, rubbing the back of his neck and puffing out his cheeks before letting the air out audibly. “Go swimming?”

Kageyama just grunts in answer, standing up and brushing the sand off of his trunks and heading for the water. Hinata hops up and jogs to catch up just as he steps into the waves, stopping when the water reaches halfway up his ribcage. Suga tosses a beachball up for Asahi to spike, sending it flying past Kageyama’s head.

“Can you grab that and send it back over, Kageyama?” Suga calls, using the opportunity to scan the rest of the area and check on the other small groups. Kiyoko and a nervous looking Yachi float on inner tubes nearby while Noya and Tanaka try to sneak up behind Tsukishima and Yamaguchi searching for shells near the shore with buckets of water to pour on their heads. Hinata wonders what the point is since they’re already wet.

Kageyama nods and turns, walking back through the water towards the lost ball.

“Hey, what’s that on your back?” Daichi asks, and Hinata’s heart stops as everyone seems to turn towards them at once, ears practically perking up with interest. 

“It’s just a sunburn!” Hinata says nervously, diving forward to shield their view of Kageyama. “I have one too! On my cheek, see? Sorry Suga! We learned our lesson we’ll wear sunscreen every day for the rest of our lives!”

“Why are you acting so weird, dumbass?” Kageyama asks, picking up the ball and moving away from Hinata. “Get out of my way.”

Kageyama turns to head toward Suga, and Hinata clasps his hands together behind his back, making eye contact with the third years and silently begging them not to say anything. All three of them raise their eyebrows and look back and forth between the two boys. 

“Does it look weird or something, Daichi?” Kageyama asks when he reaches them, handing the ball to Suga and turning to show them his back again.

Hinata straightens up when Kageyama looks at him, feigning nonchalance, but turns right back to pleading position as he looks back at Daichi over his shoulder.

“Uhhh,” Daichi starts, confusion crossing his features. “No it looks...fine. You look fine.”

“Completely fine,” Suga nods, throwing in a smile and a wink at Hinata for good measure.

“So I’m not burned?” Kageyama asks, exasperation in his tone.

“No, you’re definitely burned,” Asahi adds, snapping his mouth shut immediately as if he said something wrong. 

“But they said-,”

“You’re burned but it’s all,” Suga pauses, searching for the right words. “Uniform.”

“Yeah,” Daichi adds. “It’s over your whole back. No gaps.”

Hinata steps up next to Suga, shrugging as Kageyama narrows his eyes at him. He softly nudges Suga with his elbow to thank him and Suga nods back almost imperceptibly.

“You guys are all acting weird,” Kageyama mumbles.

“Wanna toss?” Suga asks, holding out the beachball. All of Kageyama’s suspicion melts away as he takes it, and Hinata’s heart starts to beat again, crisis averted. 

The group plays in the water until the sky starts to turn from an airy blue full of wispy clouds to soft pink and violet and finally a fiery orange as the sun sets. They all make their way back onto the sand, wrapping themselves in their towels and gathering in a circle as Daichi pours charcoal and lighter fluid into one of the built in grills sticking out of the sand. 

Suga hands them all skewers with packs of hot dogs and bags of marshmallows, complaining about the poor nutritional value as he pops a few of the marshmallows in his mouth.  

It’s somewhere between fighting with Kageyama over who can fit the most hot dogs on one skewer and almost dropping the whole thing into the barbecue pit that Hinata realizes how lucky he is. Maybe it's the exhaustion starting to creep up on him, making him rub at his eyelids to get out the nonexistent sand beneath them, or maybe it’s the way firelight dances on everyone’s faces once the sun disappears below the surface of the water, flashing orange and yellow in the navy blue of Kageyama’s eyes beside him. Maybe it’s just the vastness of the ocean and endlessness of the sky surrounding their little group and swallowing them like a warm bubble of light and laughter. 

Whatever it is, Hinata is grateful. There’s not many people willing to put up with his impulsivity, his boundless energy, his exhausting optimism bordering on naivety, but he’s glad that the ones who are are the members of his team. He’s glad to have found the best friends he could ask for, and to be able to share moments like these with them, with salty skin and itchy swim trunks filled with sand beneath a blanket of twinkling stars. 

As the embers of the bonfire begin to die down to glowing red and black the sand beneath Hinata’s head starts to actually feel like a soft pillow, and his warm belly filled with hot dogs and marshmallows starts to pull him farther away from the beach and closer to his bed back home. He can practically feel the thin blankets fall over him and his cat snuggle up under his arm; the perfect end to a perfect day.

“Oi! Dumbass! Wake up and carry your shit to the car!” 

His sleepy dream world shatters around him, but he can’t bring himself to be upset about it. 

“M’too tired,” he yawns, rolling over and spitting as sand trickles into his mouth. 

“You can sleep in the backseat,” Daichi tells him, suddenly at his side and gathering their forgotten empty water bottles from around the grill. “We have to leave before it gets too late. I’m already afraid of Suga’s night driving, I can’t even imagine  _ tired _ night driving.” 

Daichi shudders and walks away, heading towards the recycling bins near the parking lot, and Hinata sits up, suddenly awake. He had forgotten about their near death experience and isn’t ready to see his short life flash before his eyes again.

Gathering his still damp towel and tucking his volleyball under one arm Hinata heads for the back of the van where some of the rest of the group stands huddled.

“What are you guys arguing about?” He asks, tossing his ball in the van with the others and turning around.

“Kageyama can’t count,” Tsukishima says plainly, shrugging and pushing his smudged glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

“I _ can _ count! With Hinata’s we’re still missing one,” Kageyama argues back, pointing at the dirty volleyballs as if to prove his point. 

“We can’t leave without them all,” Tanaka chimes in, clutching Noya’s arm in mock hysteria. “That’s like a abandoning a child.”

“Yours is right there,” Yamaguchi tells him plainly, pointing to a ball in the corner with missing strips of leather and sharpie doodled faces over the logo. “And it looks like you’re in need of a new one anyway.”

“Hey! She’s beautiful the way she is!”

“Dirt builds  _ character _ ,” Noya nods, reaching for his own ball which if possible is dirtier than Tanaka’s. “See, how beautiful Thunder Jr. is?”

Kageyama sighs, ignoring the conversation and counting the volleyballs again. “There’s six. Only six of us brought balls so that’s all of them.”

“I brought one too,” Suga says, popping his head around the side of the door. “We started out with seven, and mine is that really clean one in the corner so one of you lost yours.”

“I just brought mine over,” Hinata tells them, pointing where his ball rolled into Suga’s.

“Mine and Tsukki’s are right here,” Yamaguchi says, nodding towards two balls next to the metal hump over the back tire. 

They all go silent and turn towards Kageyama, faces a mix of surprise, pity, and smug satisfaction. 

“Shit,” he whispers, dropping his head into his hands. “It’s mine.”

“Hurry up and find it, we’re leaving soon and I’m not above leaving a child behind. I have a curfew,” Suga tells him, patting his shoulder before leaving to help Kiyoko and Yachi fold the blankets they laid on the sand. 

“He totally will. He left us at the park last year when we went to buy more ice cream instead of getting on the bus,” Noya whispers, patting Kageyama on the back before leaving with Tanaka to help Daichi and Asahi with the ice chest.

“Maybe it fell in the water,” Tsukishima says, a glint in his eye. “It might get eaten by the sea monster.”

“I can’t just leave her out there,” Kageyama replies, a look of something Hinata might actually call fear on his face as he scans the mostly empty beach.

“Her?”

“Shut up.”

Hinata turns to look with him, putting a hand over to his forehead even though there’s no sun to shield his eyes from. “We’ll find her, Kageyama, don’t worry! She won’t get eaten!”

Tsukishima scoffs again and leaves, Yamaguchi following after shooting Kageyama a sympathetic glance. 

“There!” Hinata yells, pointing towards the water where he spots something floating just in the pearl glow of the moon on the surface. 

“Great, I just finished drying off,” Kageyama grumbles, taking off towards the shore with Hinata on his heels. 

“Do you want me to get her?” Hinata asks, the wet sand feeling so much different between his toes without the baking sun above. 

“No, dumbass, it’s my ball I’ll get her.”

Without hesitating Kageyama pulls off his tank top and wades into the water, the darkness swallowing him up like ink until he’s just a head and shoulders bobbing along, leaving Hinata oddly hurt behind him. He feels as if Kageyama has been brushing him off all day, more than usual at least. His snappy comments have been just a fraction colder than usual, his narrowed eyes chilling his skin by a few more degrees. He isn’t sure what he did to upset him, other than the Hinata shaped sunburn he has yet to discover, but he wants to get to the bottom of it. 

Kageyama almost has the floating volleyball in his hands when Hinata catches up to him.

“Hey! What’s wrong with you?”

The shout startles him, and Kageyama’s hand misses the volleyball, splashing dark saltwater into his face. He spits and sputters, spinning around to find the source. 

“What?” He asks, wiping at his mouth with an equally wet arm and frowning. 

“You’ve been blowing me off all day, what did I do?”

“You followed me all the way out here to ask that?”

Hinata turns to look back at shore, gulping as he realizes it’s much farther away than he thought. His friends look like shadow blobs from so far away, and suddenly the expanse of water feels so much more terrifying. 

“Well, y-yeah!” He yells, trying to cover up the fear with volume. “So what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, dumbass, leave me alone,” Kageyama answers, barely looking him in the eye as he makes another swipe for the volleyball before it can float too far away. “Go back to shore before Suga leaves without you too. If I’m going to be stuck here I’d rather do it alone.”

“Don’t be such a jerk,” Hinata mumbles, trying to glare in a way that might seem somewhat equal to Kageyama’s. 

“Don’t be such an idiot and I won’t have to.”

“You know wh- AHH!” Hinata screams as something slimy slides across his foot beneath the water. He flails, reaching for the first thing he can find, which just so happens to be Kageyama, and clings to it. 

“What the fuck, get off of me!” Kageyama yells, struggling and dipping beneath the water before popping back up and struggling harder.

“THE KRAKEN IS HERE!” Hinata screams, grabbing tighter around Kageyama’s shoulders and scrambling up onto his shoulders. They both dunk underwater before Kageyama manages to push Hinata off, coming up for air with gasping breaths. 

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“IT TOUCHED ME!” Hinata tries to grab onto him again but Kageyama pushes his head down quickly before letting him bob back up, but the yelling doesn’t stop. “IT GRABBED MY LEG AND TRIED TO DROWN ME!”

“STOP STRUGGLING!” Kageyama manages to get out between Hinata’s screams. Hinata wraps his legs tightly around Kageyama’s waist and latches on again, burying his face between his shoulder blades. 

“IT’S COMING FOR US ALL! WE’RE GONNA DIE!”

“WE REALLY ARE GONNA DIE IF YOU DON’T STOP TRYING TO DROWN ME!”

The slimy tentacle swipes across Hinata’s skin again, sending a cold feeling across his ribcage and sliding against Kageyama’s stomach along the way. Both boy’s erupt into unintelligible screams and flailing limbs, water filling Hinata’s nostrils and they both fight to cling to the other. He doesn’t realize they’ve moved until his back hits sand and his voice is hoarse from strain and saltwater.

“Stop screaming already, we made it,” Kageyama pants, collapsing onto the sand as Hinata sits up, finding himself safe and sound on sweet land once again.

“Did you pull us to shore?” He asks, turning to Kageyama with wide awestruck eyes as he coughs and spits water on the sand. 

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” he spits, his blue fire eyes almost glowing in the darkness. “You almost killed us!”

“The Kraken was going to get me!” Hinata yells back, trying to make Kageyama see reason for once. “You felt it! It was feeling us up with its gross tentacles and getting its giant beak mouth ready to swallow us whole!”

“It was just some seaweed, you dumbass! You almost drowned me over some seaweed!”

They pause, eyes meeting over the sand and chests still heaving from excitement and exertion. Time seems to sit still for a single moment, the past few minutes finally settling in Hinata’s mind, and he bursts into laughter. 

“At least we survived, right?” He asks, standing up and offering a hand to Kageyama to pull him up, figuring they’d better make their way to the van before Suga really does leave them behind. 

Kageyama looks up at him as if he’s lost his mind, eyebrows knitting together and cheeks flaring an angry red, even in the pale glow of moonlight. “Just leave me alone,” he mumbles, swatting Hinata’s hand away and standing up himself. He scoops his forgotten tank top up from the sand and starts to storm back towards the van.

Hinata feels like he just got kicked in the chest, and not just from the screaming. “If you hate me so much why don’t you just say it?” He yells after him, kicking at the sand and plopping down, dropping his head in his hands so no one can see the hot prick of tears at the corners of his eyes.

He pulls his knees to his chest, waiting for the van engine to roar to life and hopefully leave without him, taking that idiot Kageyama far away from him. He doesn’t know what it is about him that makes Hinata want to be close to him so much, but whatever it is it's a curse.

“I...don’t.” A voice come softly behind him, startling him into lifting his head from the ball he’d curled into.

“Huh?”

“I don’t...hate you,” Kageyama says again, dropping onto the sand a ways to Hinata’s side but not quite looking at him. 

“Well you sure don’t act like it,” Hinata mumbles, turning his head away indignantly. 

“I’m sorry,” Kageyama apologizes, and Hinata has to whip his head around and make sure this is Kageyama and not some imposter. But it’s really him, pouty and hair dripping against his forehead, but still him. Hinata swears hell might have frozen over because Kageyama Tobio just  _ apologized  _ to him. 

Hinata isn’t sure how to respond, but he doesn’t have to because Kageyama does it for him.

“It’s not my fault I can barely look at you,” he says, sighing and deflating a little as he rests his chin on his arms folded across his knees. 

“Are you calling me ugly?”

“What? No,” he answers, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “You’re just so damn sunny all the time.”

“Sunny? That’s what you’re mad at me for?”

“I’m not mad, I’m just...bad at dealing with it.” He pauses, turning to fix Hinata with a gaze so vulnerable that he feels like he’s meeting an entire new person. “You’re so bright it’s like looking directly at the sun. Actually, I tested it today, and the sun is easier to look at.”

“So, you  _ are _ calling me ugly,” Hinata repeats, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes.

“Oh my god, no I’m not. Shut up for a second, will you?” 

Hinata sighs and makes a zipping motion over his mouth, folding his arms to show he’s

listening. 

“Being around you is...warm. You’re always so happy, hopping around laughing about one thing or joking about another, always with a huge smile on your face. You’re like sunshine, the kind that doesn’t hurt, and I don’t know how to deal with it because when I look at you I feel like I’m melting or burning or  _ both _ .”

Hinata feels his eyes widen, his breath hitching in his chest as, for once in his life, he’s speechless.

“So I yell at you, and call you names and act like an ass because I don’t know how else to deal with it. I’m stupid, and I’m sorry, but it’s definitely not because I hate you.”

“Oh my god,” Hinata manages to choke out, watching Kageyama blush and look away as he waits for some sort of answer. “That’s the gayest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Wha-,”

He doesn’t have a chance to argue back before Hinata pounces on him, knocking him backwards into the sand and pressing their salty mouths together, feeling like a fresh drink of water despite their dry lips and clumsy movements. Hinata sits back, legs straddling Kageyama’s chest and cheeks straining against the widest grin he’s ever given. Kageyama shoots back a tiny breathless smile, and Hinata feels like he was just granted his own type of sunshine. 

“Oi! Are you two finished yet? It’s time to go! I wasn’t lying about that curfew!” Suga yells from the open window of the van and the two spring apart, staring at each other startled before bursting into laughter. Kageyama’s laugh is like music, and Hinata decides he wants to hear it every day for the rest of his life. 

When they make it to the van Suga refuses to let them in, sending them to the back hatch area with the ice chest and volleyballs where their wet and sandy clothes can’t ruin his mom’s upholstery. It’s all fine to Hinata though, feeling perfectly content to snuggle up next to Kageyama’s still wet side and finally lay his exhausted head down on something soft and warm and better than his pillow. 

“Hey,” he yawns, looking around at the quiet space and up at Kageyama’s droopy eyes. “There’s still only six volleyballs in here.”

“I left mine in the water. I couldn’t drag you and it back to the shore at the same time,” he shrugs, saying it nonchalantly as if he was explaining what type of milk he bought with lunch. 

“You left your volleyball?” Hinata asks, pressing a hand to his chest. “For me?”

“Of course I’d choose you over a volleyball, dumbass,” he smirks, and Hinata is speechless for the second time in one night. A new record. “I can always replace a volleyball, but I can’t replace you.”

It’s all Hinata can do to pull him down and kiss him again, both of them smiling more than kissing, still shy and slobbery but good nonetheless. 

Hinata pulls away first, a glint in his eyes as he looks back at Kageyama.

“I’d choose you over volleyball too. But just barely,” he winks, settling back down against Kageyama’s side and closing his eyes. 

“Oh yeah? Could a volleyball do this?” Kageyama asks, flipping Hinata over easily between the piles of towels and the ice chest and ducking to kiss him again, fingers tickling up his rib cage.

“Idiot, Kageyama, stop it!” Hinata giggles, pretending to fight back but not resisting too hard. 

“Oh my god, shut  _ UP _ ,” Tsukishima's voice comes from the seat in front of them, popping their imagined bubble of privacy. 

There’s a chorus of ‘yeah, cut it out’s and ‘get a room’s from the rest of the group, and Kageyama blushes above him, but Hinata can’t be bothered to care. It might be embarrassing, and Kageyama might still taste like salt and burnt hot dogs, but he wouldn’t change a thing about any of it. 

The inky black ocean starts to disappear behind them, and the chatter in the van starts to die down as people drift off to sleep one by one, the day ending once and for all, but Hinata can’t help but think again how lucky he is to be here. Nothing is perfect, not the lurch the van makes every time Suga taps the brakes, or the almost concerning volume of snoring coming from tiny Noya in the back seat, or even the cramped position he holds against Kageyama’s chest in the crowded hatch space, but for Hinata it’s all more than he could ever ask for.

Yeah, he considers  himself pretty lucky.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna find me you can head over to my [tumblr](http://ghost--fox.tumblr.com/) or my [writing blog](http://foxesandferrets.tumblr.com/) with Sweetferret!


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